The Champion and the Sleeper
by Rowan and Elder
Summary: Finding old dreams and new beginnings is an odd start for a thirty year old woman. But Sarah Williams has been looking, searching, finding- lacking. Until she finds herself knee-deep in a Fae Revolution, old friends who are not who they appear to be, a Labyrinth that desperately needs a ruler, and a not-so-evil King who needs Sarah to believe in fairy tales again. Eventual Sareth.
1. Plucked and Preserved

**A/N: This is my first story for the film and book Labyrinth. So far, I'm going to ignore the manga sequel. If you have read the manga, you'll notice I take a few things from there however. I'm taking a few liberties with the Labyrinth universe, so you may notice that in here. There will be flashbacks across Sarah's life from start to where she is now, and I do plan on having some chapters by Jareth's perspective. If there are any questions, please don't hesitate to ask them in the review.**

**Enjoy**

Sarah Williams was not the picture of innocence. She had not been for a long time. Gone were the youthful fullness of her teen self, gone was the petulant pucker of her lips, gone was the wide-eyed stare of a Fawn in wonder and adventure.

Something had dimmed in Sarah Williams. Dimmed over time and strengthened with experience. A rose plucked in maturity and preserved over time.

Parents and co-workers suspected perhaps it was in the stubbornness of her chin. When her lips pursed into a tight line and her jaw set, it was a tell of her displeasure. Her green eyes were her most emotive feature. Clear and sparkling on a good day, buoyant like an ocean reflecting the light of the sun. Clear, intense and unnervingly perceptive when suspicious but analysing. Stormy and turbulent when in temper-

Although Sarah Williams rarely lost her temper. Not with her students at least.

Every student who had passed through Class 1B knew that Ms. Williams was a strict, but fair, teacher. Prone to rare bouts of leniency and a quieter encouragement of imagination in their work, a firm believer in a healthy dose of sensibility and every now and then, very rarely, a spot of mischief. She was not unkind. Not at all. There was just something mysterious about Ms. Williams, like her body was too small for her soul, like she didn't quite fit or belong and yet she stood out the most in a sea of work-a-day teachers.

Sarah seemed to go through life like an enigmatic spectre. Co-workers saw her with friends and family, but it still seemed like there was something peculiarly off about the whole thing. People were drawn to her like Icarus to the sun, wanting to know more, wanting to understand, and yet not being able to. Sarah wished she knew the answers and reasons why herself. But companionship and understanding eluded her, even while she was surrounded by people.

The men in her life were few and did not stay long. She had once been engaged to a man named Tim, drawn to his practicality and sensible nature, but that hadn't lasted long. Close-mindedness didn't appeal to her. But it had been what she wanted at the time. She wasn't sure why she had such bad luck with men. It seemed like she was always looking, searching, taking, and finding- lacking.

At times, Sarah wondered if it was because she had too high standards. Too much idealisms. But how could that be, if she didn't quite know herself what she was looking for?

_It would help if I weren't a contradiction myself, _Sarah reclined back in her chair, pushing away the papers she was supposed to be grading and not concentrating on. _Bitter thoughts, Williams? _

But therein was the point. There were times when Sarah knew she wanted to live out of reality. In an abstract imagination that was straining underneath her skin to _live_, but hadn't developed a form yet. Once upon a time, it had taken so many forms, so easily and now…now it was like trying to catch water with her bare hands. She was still a person of some sensibility. She had dreamt fiercely once and believed fiercely once, only for it to be thrown back at her with a refusal from Julliard.

She did what people do when they're hurt and broken. Retreated to a safer place.

For some reason for Sarah, cold reality was less painful than failing the hopes of her dreams.

Dreams that were so vivid and strong in children. She both loved and hated them for it, inevitably drawn to those sparks nonetheless, with a desire to shape and point them in the right direction.

The younger generation could succeed where she hadn't. Thirty years old and still looking, searching, taking, and finding- lacking.

A small part of her, a small part that reminded Sarah of a long-forgotten dream. Where there had been small creatures and she had been brave and headstrong and utterly, completely _foolish_. That part of her gently mourned for a happy ending one day still.


	2. What The Owl Sees

"_The white owl perched with his claws hooked on a branch, an effigy of watching and waiting." – _Labyrinth the Novelization, A.C.H. Smith

Jareth did not like aging.

No Fae in the Underground did. For sure, it took many centuries for a grey hair or a wrinkle to develop, but that was beside the point. It was almost _worse. _Watching and waiting for his skin to eventually sag or his hair to turn grey. Fae weren't immortally good-looking. Their irresistible charm would remain, but Jareth loathed to think that eventually he would be some old man with just some _charm. _

He lazily twirled his fingers and a solid, perfectly formed crystal ball formed in his palm. He spun it on the edge of his fingers.

Bored.

He refused to acknowledge the word 'lonely'. He had all the company in the world. Goblins were always underfoot, or over his foot when he was feeling particularly frustrated with their inanity. He could always pop to somewhere else in the Underground. Find something of entertainment or amusement.

Only he felt weary now of their motives. The Underground operated on mutual beneficial contracts, not…giving…you stood on your own two feet and if you could stand on someone else's to reach a certain high branch then, why not?

_Why not, indeed. _Jareth's lips curled into a sneer. _Oh, bitter thoughts, your Majesty? _

The truth was that blasted girl who had beaten his Labyrinth. Beaten his Goblins. Beaten him. She'd _infected _his Labyrinth with kindness, and forgiveness, and hope. Strange emotions not common or welcomed here.

But he'd tasted it, briefly, seen it, briefly, in the short span of time she had in the Underground. So full of innocence, imagination, determination, change….Despising her and loving her, he had retreated to his castle to lick his wounds.

His effort to ignore her had been fuelled by hurt of her refusal of his offer, and anger and indignation. He'd kicked more Goblins over walls than he cared to count, danced and flirted with more Fae than he really cared for, and tried to fill an ever-growing gap that burned spectacularly where his heart should be.

_Ah, but you don't have a heart. _He thought with sneering amusement, _Not atleast, in your chest. _

Despondently, he willed the crystal in his hand to show him what he most desired. It misted for a moment, and then cleared like clouds showing the stars, and again, his breath caught.

A woman sat at a desk. Lamplight on and burning against the darkness in the room. She hunched over papers and twirled a red pen in her fingers, the same way he had been twirling the crystal in his hand before. The crystal drew closer, his want burning, and the focus zoomed in. He could see the glossy sheen of her long raven hair, the milky white of her skin, the pale pink in lips pulled taut in concentration. He delighted in the smoother, harder planes of her face, in the stubbornness of her chin, in the sculpture of her cheekbones that were no longer full with youth to mock him with.

But it was those eyes. Those cruel, beautiful, green eyes. Brooding and glazed with thought.

_What are you thinking, Sarah? _He thought, _What do you want? Say it aloud. Say it. _

She didn't. She didn't wish for anything anymore. Not since….

He remembered many years ago. After she had beaten the Labyrinth and he had been having a grand time trying to forget all about her. When that mood had left him and he had wondered what she was doing with her life now, how she was. The urge to see her had beaten him – like her – but pride stopped him from going _to _her. He escaped from the throne room and hid in his chambers, conjuring a crystal and willing it to show him Sarah.

He had promptly left for the Underground and straight to her house in his owl form.

Her new house.

Five years had gone by in the blink of his eye. In what had seemed like mere days to him, had been years for his Sarah. He flew over town and land, uncaring of the winds that fought against him, undeterred by the rain or thunder. He found to be thankful of the tree that sprouted outside her new window, and perched there, hooting.

As if by divine timing, she walked into her new room, head tilted back in mid-laughter and green eyes dancing.

By every god, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. His Sarah and yet not his Sarah. Grown from the fifteen year-old girl she had been. She waltzed into the room, dropping some sort of study books onto the bed, and mentioned for someone to come in.

He jealously hoped it wasn't a man, and was more relieved than he cared to admit when another girl came into the room. A more voluptuous girl dressed less modestly than his Sarah. He heard her giggle again and his owl eyes sought her out, his non-existent heart beating faster somewhere.

_Twenty now. Five years had gone by_, he thought, dazed. _I never noticed._

Since then, he had spent more time staring into crystals, more time flying to her in owl form. Scared that time would steal more of her from him. Scared one day he'll blink and she's gone suddenly.

He followed her through university. Watching while she studied, went to parties she didn't really want to go through but pretended she enjoyed, learned the fumbling beginnings of relationships – he sure as Oberon did not stick around to watch that – and waited for her to see him.

She noticed the owl, but didn't notice _him. _She'd forgotten _him. _Forgotten the _goblins. _Forgotten e_verything _like it was a bad dream.

And it hurt. From the distant connection he had with his heart, he heard it roaring – no, that was his mouth – he heard it weeping – no, that was something else – no, yes. He heard it breaking. Quietly. Quickly. Breaking.

Still, like some glutton for punishment, he went to her. Feeling his days bleed from King to Owl, from Fae to animal, just to see Sarah. Just to see her go about her day. He witnessed her grow. Witnessed the bitter disappointment of her dreams and wasn't sure whether he felt happy or sad about this. Seeing someone who had once been so imaginative losing all of that vigour. All of that talent.

Everything she had bought to the Labyrinth might as well have been sucked out of her.

He went to her still. She was…discontent. Still living, but existing. He knew the feeling. Looking, searching, finding- lacking.

Because of her. Because everything else looked bleak until she was there. Even now, when he felt her at her most lost, she was the brightest thing he knew.

He'd keep coming to her, until she said the right words.

"Your highness?" A pipsqueak voice interrupted his thoughts. Jareth stiffened and vanished the orb.

"What now?" He glared.

The horned goblin squeaked. Jareth couldn't help but grin. "Pipsqueak I named you, yes?"

"Y-Yes, your gloriessness-ness."

Jareth rolled his eyes. Inanity. "I pat myself on the back for a job well done on that regard, then."

The goblin looked on blankly.

Jareth felt a headache coming on. "Get on with it!"

Pipsqueak jumped. "R-right m'lord. Sir, someone's gotten into the Labyrinth!"

No they hadn't. "Impossible." Jareth deadpanned, "You're wrong. I would have felt it." Should have. He _would _have felt someone coming in. It couldn't have been a runner, no one had wished for a baby to be taken in over a decade, not since…_don't go there._

His inner voice bit back. _Like you haven't been anyway._

He despised and loved Sarah.

Now, however, wasn't the time. He felt inside him for his reserve of magic, mentally forming a ball of string and tossing it out to the connection he had with the Labyrinth. It gripped onto something, like an invisible fish quickly taking the bait. He used it to see through the Labyrinth, searching for what it had seen- some shadow obscured itself by the west side.

Unease settled inside him. It was more likely the stranger did not know what was there. But then, there were not many in the Underground who could shield themselves from his magic sight.

He teleported away, leaving a spot of glitter. The goblin squeaked.

Jareth found himself in a dingy corner. Too close to an Oubliette. _The _Oubliette. Out of the shadows, an image took form and stepped towards them.

"Jareth! I've been waiting."

His eyes took in this sudden intruder and felt his headache beginning to worsen. Some pasts, it seemed, did not know when to stay away.

**The irony of "some pasts, it seemed, did not know when to stay away" is that Jareth is in Sarah's past but still follows her. Hah. There are some wonderful similarities between the both of them I love to exploit. **

**His non-existent heart…that will be something that is explained further on in the story, but for now, no, Jareth does not have his heart on him. In him. You get it.**

**Yes, as you can see, Jareth is in love with Sarah. But he doesn't have a very good way of expressing it. The story will show flashbacks of Jareth's time watching Sarah and growing from interactions he witnessed. **

**Please review! **


	3. The Game Begins

**A/N: I just realised I've missed the disclaimer for the last two chapters. Damn. I'll go back and fix that soon. But for NOW, I do not own Labyrinth. That honour belongs to Jim Henson. I do own any OC's you may or may not notice in this story. Happy reading!**

Sarah's eyes fluttered open, and squinted at the harsh sunlight that streamed in through her window. "Shit." Rubbing one eye, she groggily groped for the curtains, grabbing a fistful and yanking them shut. "That's the last time I sleep with the curtains open…sleep…" She sprawled back, blinking.

Something she was meant to do…

Her inner voice drew itself up to its full height of five feet and five inches, crossed her arms over her chest and impatiently tapped her foot on the floor. _You're an idiot. _

The dream.

"Shit!" Nearly rolling herself onto the floor, Sarah scrambled to find purchase at her desk and dragged her laptop closer to her. She started it up. "Come on, come on." She squirmed in her chair, when a few seconds passed and her laptop was still booting up, she nearly pushed the contents of her desk off in haste for a pen and paper.

Instead of writing, she drew. It was hasty, sharp, like quick doodle sketches on the back of a mock exam paper (and she had done plenty of those in the past). When she was finished with one, she quickly went onto the other paper. Her mind was alive with images, trying to latch onto every remembered detail she could think of in her dream.

It was somewhat hopeless. She remembered bits and drabs. Big, significant events. But the tiny things, the things she knew she shouldn't forget, were already fading into an unknown corner of her mind.

Finished, she dropped her pen and spread out the papers across the desk. Her upper teeth caught her bottom lip and chewed thoughtfully.

Sarah had taken a few folklore papers in university. Drawn to European culture, and its rich mythology and stories. She had particularly taken a fancy to Irish and Scottish folklore, but she had passed that off as a fleeting fancy, a salute to her old self who used to have such amazing dreams of goblins, and heroic quests, and things she no longer believed in.

The dreams about goblins weren't common. This man was even rarer. But Sarah could have sworn she had met him before, seen that haughty, self-assured face somewhere, and if she tried her hardest, she could almost hear the smooth baritone of his voice.

_You'd know if you met this guy, Williams. _Sarah looked down at her drawings. Crappy as they were, now that she could look at a rough draft, her own dream image of him seared itself in her mind's eye.

The man had a well-sculptured face. Close to her age but very handsome. He had curious features, light eyebrows that perked upwards at the ends, a set of mismatched eyes – one a warm honey brown, and the other a cold limestone green – long, blonde hair messily set around his shoulders in some punk rock-like fashion, and a mouth that, even set in a brooding frown, did things to her stomach.

She shook her head. Fluttering butterflies belonged to her twenties, when she'd been young and very much in pursuit of such feelings.

When you hit thirty though, it's less about the chase, and more about the hurry-up-and-settle-down-soon-you-don't-have-all-the-time-in-the-world-sister feeling.

_I've met him…_she thought distantly, letting her eyes slide across the pictures.

They showed a portrait of him looking ahead, eyes glazed and curious. The next was him finding some sort of old-fashioned spindle in a dark corner. The third picture was him, of his face hungry and yearning, reaching out to touch the tip of the spindle. The fourth was a shadow watching the events unfold. It was shapeless and had no features, she wasn't sure what the hell or who the hell it had been. The fifth picture was swarmed with little creatures, ugly goblins with horns, and helmets, and fairies dressed in little threadbare leaves and twine. All of them took up every space on the picture, eyes wide and watching.

Watching their King make a grave mistake.

_King. What the hell, Williams? _Sarah pushed the papers away and frowned. "I think I've been reading one too many fairy tales. You're being stupid and-" Her eyes casually glanced at the clock- and again. "And late! Oh, my god! Late! Late! _Late!"_

Nearly keening out loud like a howling cat, Sarah quickly dressed in a pair of comfortable black jeans, calf-high leather brown boots, and a flattering green cardigan. Her straight black hair tamed itself after a few hand swipes through it, and she liked the slightly ruffled look to it, it almost reminded her of- _go. _She quickly brushed her teeth, grabbed her bag, a granola breakfast bar to go, applied lip balm and all but flew out of the house.

As she left, the front door shutting and locking behind her, the ticking of her clock went on a few beats more. Then stopped.

In the quiet of the house, the bed sheets in her room ruffled a little. The small rubbish can tipped over, emptying pieces of old chewing gum wrapper and paper balls. The curtains that she had closed pulled themselves open again. Something scuttled across the carpet, and a small, inhumane hand slithered over the top of her desk and slammed down on the portrait of Jareth's face.

It seemed like whenever you really needed to get somewhere, every car park was freaking taken except for the ones a block away, and the disabled parks.

Sarah was briefly temped, okay very tempted, to just park in the disability parks. She might have entertained the thought more, if every staff member on grounds didn't know the sight of her car. In the end, she sucked up her frustration, parked a block away and hurried in her boots to the school building.

Ms. Williams was never late. So Class 1B sat at their desks, perplexed and unsure of what to do with themselves. Sally Bucknell, class bookworm, awkwardly pulled out her homework and checked it over again. Jim Bowie, class clown, had managed to sneak his new guitar into school and strummed it now, his chest puffing out a little as his friends gawked. Daniel Watson, a quiet student who genuinely liked Ms. Williams, argued with Jennifer Morris about whether or not they should tell the principal.

As strict as Ms. Williams could be, no one really wanted to get her into trouble except for Jennifer Morris. Whom Daniel thought was the very definition of spoilt rich girl who hadn't gotten what she wanted from Ms. Williams, which was to get away with not doing any homework, or Satan's spawn. Considering her Dad was some hot shot attorney, and Daniel's Dad always said lawyers were an unmentionable word, Daniel was going to side with the spawn of Satan theory.

The resolution worked itself out when the door was flung open, and Ms. Williams hurried in, stack of papers in hand.

"My apologies for being late," She started, "I had a family crisis to attend to- yes, Ms. Morris?"

Jennifer lowered her hand, which had shot in the air as soon as Ms. Williams entered the room. "Miss, my Dad said if you were late to class by half past, then we would get a free period."

Jim Bowie missed a string and strung badly. Everyone winced. "Free period?"

"No, Mr. Bowie, and put the guitar away before I have to confiscate it. Now, please." Sarah turned to Jennifer, "Is it half past yet, Miss Morris?"

"Um, well, no. But it's only a few minutes until-"

"Then I'm late, but not that late. If everyone could bring out yesterday's homework and hand it up to me at the front, please. Then we'll get to today's lesson. Since we've missed half the class, I suppose we'll have to skip discussion time and just spend the rest of the hour reading chapter four of our books."

A hungry look overtook Sally Bucknell's face and she stretched her hand in the air.

"Yes, Miss Bucknell?"

"What if we've already read chapter four?"

Everyone rolled their eyes except for Daniel and Sarah. Sarah smiled.

"Continue on from where you are then, Sally."

Sally beamed and sunk back into her chair, already passing her homework to the person in front of her, and all but nose-diving back into their class book.

Everyone's homework ended up in Daniel's hands and he passed it onto Sarah, giving her a shy smile and scurrying back to his seat to read like everyone else.

Sarah was grateful for the quiet. She rubbed her face and fiddled with things on her desk, making sure everything was organised the way that she liked it to be, before discreetly pulling out her phone to check her messages.

She had one text message from her younger brother, Toby.

_In Bonnieville. B urs tonite. _

Sarah rolled her eyes and quietly texted back.

_Text like a normal human being. I know you can spell...somewhat. Want me to pick you up?_

_A_lmost instantaneously, Toby texted her with a reply.

_Nah, its lyk a 5 minute walk to ur house, c u 2nite. _

With a last eye roll, Sarah tucked her phone back into her bag. Her brother had turned sixteen a month ago. Whereas Sarah's petulant and moody attitude had seemed to miraculously change overnight when she was fifteen, her brother had no such motivation. Sarah had left for university when he was only four and a half, so he had been practically raised and spoiled and treated as an only child.

He'd been stroppy at home lately, so he was being sent to her place for the week. Sarah didn't have too much of a problem with this, since she lived by herself and could do with the company.

Shaking out of her reverie, the raven-haired woman reached for her students' completed homework.

Over the weekend, each student had been tasked with writing a short story about their short school holiday. It mattered not if it were real or made-up, but points were awarded for use of creative writing, metaphors, similes and imagery.

She spent the next ten minutes mindlessly absorbed in reading and grading, until she came to Jennifer Morris's paper.

It was titled _Labyrinth._

_Goblins come for children in the holidays. That's when parents are with their kids the most. That's when fights really happen, you see, because they spend so much time together. _

_Dad says there's no such thing as goblins, but I know the truth and Mom does as well. _

_We can tell because the goblins live in the walls. Hear them scratching against the wood. Looking at you through the mirror – but you can't see them. So, how do you see a goblin? _

_You make a wish for the goblins to take someone away, but it has to be the right words or they won't come. But he will. He has hair yellow like sunshine, and teeth as sharp as swords, and when Mom begs him not to take one of us away he says "What's said is-"_

"Jennifer."

The sudden, sharp word pierced the quiet of the room, and every student looked up.

"Jennifer" Sarah repeated a bit more loudly, "Could you come here, please?"

The dark-haired girl simply sighed, put her book down and walked primly over to Sarah's desk. Her voice was quiet. "Yes?"

Sarah gave her back her homework and spoke quietly, noting that everyone else was pretending to read but their eyes kept sliding to them. She only wanted to talk, not embarrass the girl. "What is this?"

"My homework."

"Where did you get the inspiration for it?"

Jennifer gave her an odd look, "In my head. Where else?"

Sarah pointedly ignored the attitude for now. "This is already a book, Jennifer, did you get your inspiration from that book?"

"I don't know any book. My mum used to tell me old fairy tales and I just wrote one of them down."

It was perfectly rational for the Labyrinth to be based on old folklore. Sarah knew that. _I mean, goblins living in walls? Please. _But summoning goblins, goblins taking away children, the description of the child kidnapper, and those few words of dialogue.

It all felt a little too close to home for Sarah, and she had no idea why.

She'd had a similar dream so many, many years ago.

Faintly, Sarah remembered a much younger version of herself, giving away a tatty red book in a garage sale, wanting to purposefully leave some memory in the past.

"Ms. Williams?"

Jennifer was giving her an odd, disturbed look. Sarah shook her head, breathed in, and reached for paper and pen. She quickly wrote a note, signed it, and handed it to the girl.

"Give this to your mom, Jennifer, I think I should talk to her."

The smaller girl's face turned white. "B-But Miss, I'm not in trouble, am I? My Dad wouldn't-"

"You're not in trouble," Sarah explained soothingly, "No, I just would like to talk to your mother about- about your progress in the class, is all."

Jennifer regarded her warily, "But, not like bad progress, right?"

"Of course not."

Biting her lip, the younger girl finally nodded and tucked the note into a pocket in her skirt. "Okay, Miss." She gave a final nod and headed back to her desk, just as the peal of the bell for next period rang.

The rest of the day passed unbearably slow for Sarah. Her body was on auto pilot. She could hear and feel herself distantly going about her day, writing up instructions, giving out instructions, talking to students and co-workers, but she wasn't _there. _She felt out of her body, disconnected, her mind was miles away in a static place where only discontent sat inside her.

It was a feeling that had come and gone, and come and gone, for the last fifteen years.

Some nights it had driven her to seeking solitary shelter in her room, her body wracked with lonely tears and low sobs. Sometimes it drove her to put on her best kick-ass summer dress, curl her hair, put on a bit of make-up, and hit the town as the life of the party.

Trying to find an invisible and unknown cure for a sickness that was eating her up inside.

It was like she had tasted adventure, excitement, passion before. So everything else tasted bland, settled like ash on her tongue. Why have one chemically-injected, supermarket peach when you'd had the best goddamn peach ever?

Funnily enough, Sarah couldn't think of anything she'd done that had made her life now seem…so dull.

Skydiving, black water rafting, mountaineering, deep sea diving….Sarah had done it all.

She knew she shouldn't feel so miserable. There were plenty of people out there with far worse conditions than her, who had plenty good reason to be lonely and disheartened. But Sarah couldn't help the way she felt.

"So, is spacing out a regular thing with you, then?" A sudden amused voice broke her out of her thoughts.

Sarah jumped. A woman her own age stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame in a casual manner. She had thick, honey brown curls that settled somewhere below her chest, and a petite frame. _A lovely face, _Sarah thought. It was completely devoid of make-up, but the woman had clear olive skin, bright and perceptive green eyes, a shade lighter than her own, and a full mouth pulled into a haughty smirk. Despite her dignified air, she was wearing a pair of jeans, a leather jacket, and for some odd reason, a pair of jandals. "Do you mind if I…?" She gestured to the chair inside the room, the one sitting innocently in front of the desk.

Sarah sprung up, "Oh, of course! Come in!" Sarah glanced at the ornament clock on her desk, owl-shaped, a gift she'd bought for herself a few months ago. She liked owls.

"Twenty past five," Sarah sighed, "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Morris, I presume?"

The woman waved her off and folded herself into the chair, "Kharis. Please. Mrs. Morris makes me sound like some old bat," She reclined, her face set in the same amused way. Now that she was up close, Sarah realized one of her eyes was a darker colour than the other. "May I call you Sarah?"

She found herself nodding before she thought properly on the offer, "Yeah, no problem." She sat down. "Kharis? Not from around here, are you?"

Kharis tilted her head back and laughed, it was a genuine, throaty laugh that Sarah liked. "No, not really. But my husband and I settled here some time ago. What of you, Sarah? Have you been in Port Haven for very long?"

"Six years," Sarah replied with a noncommittal shrug, "Port Haven's kind of a small place, but it has a rich history, and wildlife."

"Oh yes," Kharis's eyes pinpointed the clock ornament on her desk and stared. "And owls. We get a lot of owls around here. My cat doesn't take well to them, thinks their haughty things. But this damn brown owl wouldn't leave my windowsill for ages." She looked up, and Sarah found herself pinned under a gaze that seemed mischievous and yet, unnervingly perceptive. It was like a dual-natured stare, a light hearted veneer over something much deeper and unpredictable. "Do you ever get nightly visits from owls, Sarah?"

There was something kind of odd about this woman. Some sort of charm that made her really easy to like at first, but the more Sarah stared at her, the more peculiar she seemed. "Not really."

"That's too bad. Owls are meant to be the symbol of wisdom and waiting. Might be good luck to have them around."

Sarah raised an eyebrow, "And you don't let your cat chase them…?"

A short, ironic smile twitched at the corner of Kharis's mouth. "My cat's far too lazy, and the owl thinks itself far too clever. One day, I might catch that owl myself."

This woman seemed somewhat out of place. Sarah didn't take her eyes off of her. She seemed like a dignified yet casual woman, cheeky and curious, almost gregariously harmless. But there was an overlap. She could see it. Something very different underneath, a deeper perception, a darker, more feral-like instinct, someone with secrets. She reminded Sarah of…

"Goblins." Kharis interrupted.

"Sorry, what?"

"Goblins," The blonde haired woman reclined back in her chair, "That's what we're here for, isn't it? My telling my daughter silly fantasy stories."

Warily, Sarah forced herself to concentrate in the moment, not what she thought she could see hiding beneath a smile and a pretty face. "So, you admit you made up a story about kidnapper goblins to your daughter?"

"Is it a crime if I did? Every kid deserves to hear a good story." She leaned in, resting her chin in the cusp of her hands. "Does it upset you? Or are you more interested in the story? I'd be happy to tell you more."

Suddenly, Sarah's phone went off. The woman flinched back at the noise. "Sorry, that's mine." Sarah quickly grabbed her phone and checked the caller ID. Toby Williams. Worry exploded in her chest and she quickly accepted the call. "Toby, are you-"

"_Sarah!" _Toby's panicked voice set her nerves on edge. _"Sarah, where are you? Jesus, I thought you'd been taken or something, I'm gonna call the police. Where are you? Are you okay?"_

What? "Toby, calm down, I'm at work in a meeting." Sarah's eyes flickered to Kharis. The woman simply smiled. "What are you talking about? What do you need the police-"

"_Sarah, someone broke into the house."_

"WHAT!?"

"_Yeah. The whole place is trashed. Can you just get here, now? This is creeping me the fuck out."_

Sarah forced herself to calm down. "Toby. Listen to me. Stay out of the house. Go over to my neighbour's and stay there until I get home. Ring the police. That's it, okay?"

"_Why do I have to go to your neighbours?" _He whined,

"Because whoever broke in might still be there."

There was a pause on the other side, nothing but static, and then Toby meekly replied. _"I'm just going over to your neighbours, please get here soon. Oh, and Sarah? I love you."_

"I love you too, squirt. I'll be home soon." She hung up. "Damn. Damn, damn, _damn._" Sarah stood, scooping what she needed into her hand bag.

"Is everything alright?" Kharis politely asked, standing in unison with her.

"Uh, yeah, I just," Sarah sighed, "Sorry, can we continue this another time? There's been a break in at my home and I need to sort this out."

"Oh no problem." Kharis smiled, "I'm sure we'll meet each other again very soon. It was nice to meet you, Sarah."

"And you, Kharis."

For the second time that day, Sarah cursed at not having her own designated car park. Somewhere much closer to the building. She hurried to her car, and drove as fast as she could back to her house. Frustration and anger roiled inside her, and she tried to not temperamentally smack her hand against the wheel of her car and growl about how unfair it all was. It wouldn't solve anything.

She almost didn't want to know what the damages were.

Just as she pulled into the car park – groaning when she saw the door hanging off its hinges, but the exterior of the house was otherwise intact and untouched - her neighbour's porch light came on, and a tall, lean body shot out of the house and dashed towards her. Sarah had just gotten out of the car before she was enveloped in a hug that smelt of pine needles and mint. She hugged him back and breathed in. _Toby._

"You, maybe don't want to go inside…" Toby said weakly into her hair. He was much taller than her, even at sixteen, and could fit her underneath his chin. "Police haven't even arrived yet."

Sarah gathered what courage she could, and pulled away. "No, I better check. It's my home." She popped open the boot of her car and Toby's eyebrows raised when she showed him a mean-looking baseball bat. One that had obviously been used before in the past, if the small dents in it meant anything.

"Sar, this isn't the 80's. You can't just protect yourself with a bat. People these days have this thing called a gun-" He shied away with a dopey grin when she gently tapped his arm with her bat.

"Shut up, whippersnapper." From the corner of her eye, she noticed her old neighbour come out onto the porch. The elderly woman looked at them, and just tightened her robe around her frail body. She kept staring at them.

Sarah pursued her lips, straightened her shoulders, marched to her front door, and gently pushed it open. It creaked, fell off its hinges, and landed on the floor with a loud thump.

"Well," Toby said loudly, "that's unfortunate."

Giving her brother a withering stare, Sarah ventured inside. Toby followed soon afterward.

It wasn't as bad as she had imagined. It was dark, so she switched on the light. It flickered, and died. So did the rest of the light bulbs that she tried. Everything in the kitchen was open – cupboards, fridge, microwave, oven – and broken dishes littered the floor. The couch looked like it had been ripped open by a wild animal, inside the holes were cacoon-sized nests made of couch stuffing. Sarah wasn't sure she wanted to know what had done it.

She crept upstairs, bat at the ready. She could hear running water and soon stepped into a large puddle. The bathroom door was open and water was lapping out of it at a steady pace. Nothing else had been touched inside.

"Toby…"

"I got it." He tip toed across the water to turn off the tap. Sarah moved onto her bedroom. Her grip tightened on the bat. She slowly pushed her door open, and her jaw dropped.

The first thing she noticed was that her mattress had been uplifted, and somehow broken in half, so that she could see the springs jutting out of it. There were odd chew marks on the headboard. Blankets lay like tattered ribbon on her carpeted floor. Books accompanied them, pages ripped out and scattered everywhere. Her foot nudged against something that crinkled.

She bent down, pulling out her phone and adjusted the flashlight onto it. It was the picture of the man she'd dreamt. Crinkled and then smoothed out, like it had been rolled into a ball, lovingly smoothed out, and the process repeated again and again. As if the person wasn't sure if they hated or loved it.

Sarah swore and stood, picture in hand. She pointed her flashlight around at the walls, and stopped.

"Toby! Toby!"

Her younger brother ran to her, splashing water across the floor as he went. "What? What's going on!?"

Almost nonplussed, Sarah pointed to where her flashlight was currently on. "Exactly _how_, did you miss that?"

Toby paled.

The wall was ridden with holes. Sarah noticed the wood had fallen inside, so something must have punched or whacked holes from _within _the wall. But there was something more pressing to consider. What took up the rest of the wall was a message engraved by what could have only been many, many fingernail scratching. Shallow, short grooves that overlapped in hundreds to form two words.

_Summon me. _

**A/N: That is the longest friggin chapter I've written. They won't all be that long, I promise. Please review!**


	4. What's Inside the Walls

**A/N: This story is turning out creepier than I intended. But I quite like that, and hope you guys too. There's always been an element of creepy to old folklore, so I'm enjoying the suspense. Right now Sarah needs a bit of shaking up, she's been living in a rut for the last fifteen years, leaving her adventure behind in the Labyrinth as just a bad nightmare. I don't own the Labyrinth, again that pleasure is Jim Henson's creation. Please read and review.**

Sarah remembered a dream.

A beautiful kind of dream. A vivid kind of _memory_ that she had forgotten as she had gotten older. It was filed away in the _harmless, forget it _folder in some organised part of her mind. Her inner conscience had emerged, wearing a librarian like outfit and severe glasses, demanded the memory, tucked it into the plainest, ugliest folder it could find and stashed it away somewhere.

Sarah remembered the addictive taste of adventure on her tongue. She remembered conquering anything with the sheer belief and dogged determination that she could. Remembered where there were those who cheered for her, those who defied her, where they left magic in her ears and fingertips, and finally, the sweet taste of a dream and adventure that had won and come true for her.

Why had she forgotten that?

Somewhere along the line, Sarah applied for Julliard. That sheer belief and dogged determination that was so much a part of her youth…had crumbled and shattered, torn to pieces like she did the rejection letter she had received.

Reality was so much bitterer. So much more unfair. It didn't matter how determined or how much faith you had, some things just couldn't happen. Weren't meant to be.

That beautiful dream had turned into a nightmare. She remembered the sharp taste of sulphur and grit from the concrete walls. The realization that a beautiful man with magic could crush the fragile grove of her throat, could turn her easily into a frog and stomp on her for her defiance. She could have died, could have been…so many things.

The nightmares weren't good for her. She would wake up clammy and shaking, frightened and disturbed. Dogged by a memory that she would rather forget. So an owl that she thought must have been J-…him, couldn't possibly have been following her. It was just an owl. Nothing she needed to be afraid of.

The mirror she wondered might take her away to danger was just a mirror. Nothing more.

No more birthday wishes were said either.

Nothing utterly important had ever happened to her.

Except this.

"Oh,_ Sarah."_ Irene Williams was the first person that came out of the house. As soon as the car parked, Sarah had just managed to get out of the passenger's seat before she was in the arms of an older, light-haired woman. "Sarah." Irene pulled back, a deep frown on her face as she quickly looked her over. "Are you alright? We were so worried when we heard what happened."

The black-haired woman gently shrugged her off, unsure of the sudden concern. They had not gotten on so well in the past, and had only recently come to civil terms. "I'm fine, Irene." A taller, leaner man dogged Irene's steps, and with a start, Sarah realised that that shadow of a man was her father. "Dad…"

Robert Williams had always been a rather dumpy, humble man, unwilling to be assertive (which was one of the traits Sarah had always been impatient with in him) but he seemed worse off now. Stress and age had taken away most of his hair, and deepened the lines in his face. He looked tired and stressed.

A pang of worry struck her. _Was this because Toby was out of control? _Her eyes flickered to her younger brother, whom was taking his time getting out of the car and glared grumpily at his mother.

"Sarah, honey, it's good to see you." Robert gave a waning smile and came to give her a one-armed hug. He felt even more frail than he looked. Almost a decade older than what he was.

"Dad," She choked, "Are you alright?"

What eyebrows he still had rose. "Me? I'm fine, don't you worry. I should be asking you, shouldn't I?"

"I'm fine, Dad." Sarah insisted, "Honestly-"

"Toby, could you grab your sister's things from the trunk?" Irene asked. Toby gave her a filthy look but did as he was told. "Sarah, you stay as long as you need to. Until you find another place. Come inside, you must be exhausted from all this."

Truth to be told, she really was. Last night had been eventful. Coming home to her house completely trashed and a strange message on the wall. It had taken a few hours to deal with the police, who wanted a full report, and questioned whether she knew of anyone's motives against her, if she was involved with the occult, and other things that she was quickly forgetting already. All of it was ridiculous. Of course she wasn't involved in the occult or had any real enemies.

She wasn't allowed to take much from the house due to it maybe being evidence. She was allowed some toiletries and untouched clothes. They might be able to pull fingerprints off of the rest, due to the almost supernatural nature of the invasion, they were willing to investigate. Nothing left nail-sized grooves in a wall that deep without leaving behind a nail atleast. Not unless they were made of something much more biologically hardened.

Maybe a team of acrylic-nail armed school girls…

Probably not.

She and Toby hadn't gotten much sleep afterwards. They stayed in a cheap motel room for the rest of the night. It had a flimsy lock, and she made sure she slept in the bed closest to it, keeping an eye open until eventually exhaustion overtook her. In the morning, Toby had informed their father on last night's events and they drove back home to stay.

The four of them went inside. Toby left her things by the door and disappeared to his room to charge his phone. Her Dad mentioned something about putting on the kettle and left for the kitchen. Sarah looked around. Her father and step mother's house was timeless. A classic over fifty years old, with a veranda and going around it. Inside, it hadn't changed much. A newer couch and television. Sarah touched the wallpaper and smiled slightly. It was still ugly to her, just as it had been when she was fifteen. But being here, gave her a greater sense of security and nostalgia than anywhere else

"I cleaned your old room a bit," Irene laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled in a comforting way. "Sorry, I turned it into my office before but I moved back in your bed, and some of your old things are still there. Want to take a look?"

Her old room. "Yeah, yeah, thank you, Irene."

Sarah felt her step mother's eyes on her as she walked up the stairs, but didn't feel threatened or annoyed by it. Irene really was concerned. She felt a strange sense of happiness about that.

Her room was exactly the same way as she left it. Sarah hovered in the doorway, wide-eyed. Oh, exactly. Irene had done an amazing job in cleaning up after herself.

She walked in and three steps…the floorboard creaked. Grinning, she made her way to her bed and sat down. The bed was well-worn, soft, barely retaining any firmness due to its age and use. Her fingertips brushed against the fuzzy material of her afghan blanket, colourful and worn, it'd been a gift from her grandparents before they passed away.

She used to use it as the cover of her bedroom fort while she arranged all of her teddy bears as an audience, and told stories and secrets to them with her trusty flashlight and Lancelot.

"Lancelot!" She stood and walked towards the cubbyholes that housed all of her teddy bears. She counted twelve of them and- oh yes. The molten gold-coloured teddy bear in its pride of place, in good condition, including the blue ribbon around its neck. Lancelot had been her favourite as a kid. Him and..."Oh." Her eyes landed on the small, orange, fox-like teddy bear on the floor. It looked like it had fallen from somewhere. She bent down to collect it, turned it around and froze.

"_With my lifeblood have I sworn, that none shall pass this way without my permission."_

"_Sir Didymus, at your service, milady."_

"_If that is how it is done, then that is how you must do it."_

"_And remember, sweetest damsel, shouldst thou ever have need…"_

"I'll call." Sarah found herself repeating what she had once said before. So long ago. She absently brushed the whiskers on the teddy bear's face.

"Sir Didymus." A voice called from the doorway. Sarah looked up. Toby stood there, a glazed look in his eye as he observed the bear in her hand. She quickly stashed it away behind Lancelot in its cubby.

"Toby! Oh, uh, you alright?"

He shook himself out of whatever daze he'd been in. "Uh, uh, yeah. No, I'm fine. Just dropping off your stuff," He lifted her bag. "Oh, and Mom and Dad have tea and stuff downstairs so…whenever you're ready. Yeah." Awkwardly he left the bag by the door, waved at her and shuffled out.

She stared after him, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. _Hopefully he doesn't remember…._Her inner conscience tapped its foot. _Remember what? It was just a dream. Come on, Williams. _She got up and lifted her bag onto the bed, opening it up with a little bit more force than necessary and started to put her things away.

_Tap, tap. _

Sarah looked up.

_Tap, tap._

Confused, she looked at the window. There was nothing there. Definitely no owl like before. Strange, she kind of missed that owl. It had become something of a constant companion through her life. Maybe it was a spirit animal.

Maybe whatever was tapping was just a tree branch, or a rat, or just something perfectly explainable.

She went to go back to her bag, when something louder, heavier and right in front of her wall went _THUMP. THUMP._

Sarah jumped. Her heart leapt right into her throat. "What…the…hell!?" Pulse racing, she backed away from her wall.

From the exact same spot came a softer _tap, tap._

For a moment, Jennifer's story came back to her. _"There are goblins in the walls…"_

There could _not _be goblins in the walls!

"Sarah." Irene was at the doorway this time. She took one look at the wide-eyed, flushed raven-haired woman and frowned. "Are you okay?"

"I, uh…" Sarah swallowed, and her gaze fell intently on to the wall. "Did you hear something right then?"

Irene's eyes slowly shifted to where Sarah was looking at, and then back to her. "I didn't hear anything-"

"Just, wait a minute." Sarah interrupted. They stood there in silence.

A minute went by and nothing happened. Irene quietly sighed. "Sarah, you've been through a lot of stress lately. You just had someone violate your home, violate your sanctuary. I know how much you love your private space and to have this horrible thing happen to you…you're just on edge. Paranoia does things to us."

"I'm not paranoid."

"No," Irene said gently, "No but, having a cup of tea or coffee might do some good, yeah?" She walked in and tugged on her sleeve. "Come down and let's talk over something to eat."

For once, Sarah felt like she was fifteen years old and being babied by someone who cared. She couldn't bring herself to resent Irene for that.

**A/N: Currently, I'm on a 12 day cruise around New Zealand and Australia and using my phone as a hotspot to access fanfiction. Otherwise I would be trying to type this all up using my phone. Originally, this was going to be a much longer chapter but with all the sightseeing, I haven't had much time. Not to worry, I should have the next chapter up next weekend. Please review!**


	5. Who's There

**A/N: Aaand we're back and moving into the plot. Some questions will be answered, and more questions will arise. As always, I do not own Labyrinth…but I wish I did. There would be a sequel, and it would not be the manga version. Warning: a bit of sexual implication ahead. The story is rated M.**

Sarah had never been a particularly clumsy person. Everyone tripped over a step, or a twig they hadn't seen, or even their own feet atleast once a year. She had had a lot of practise acting out royal roles when she was younger, so good posture and coordination came along with that. Toby wasn't clumsy either. Irene definitely wasn't, although there was once a time when Sarah thought Irene played a royal role herself a little too well. Her Dad hadn't been that clumsy either.

She didn't remember him being this clumsy. She had only been in the kitchen for ten minutes and he had already dropped a cup of coffee, tried to put the kettle in the fridge, and poured salt instead of sugar into her tea…after knocking over the pepper shaker.

"Dad." Alarmed, Sarah stood, prepared to help him sit beside her. He fended off her hands and managed to collapse into the seat beside her. "Dad, what is going on?"

"I'm fine, Sarah." His hands shook as he cupped his own salty coffee. "Don't worry about me so much."

"No, you're _not _fine." Sarah bought her seat closer and sat, leaning in so she could get a closer look at him. "Are you sick? Is it Toby? Is he getting out of hand?"

He rested a hand on top of hers and squeezed. "You have enough on your plate."

Sarah could feel the tips of her ears beginning to burn. "Dad! I'm thirty years old. Whatever's going on with you is worrying me more. We should talk about this."

He just shook his head. "Drink your coffee, Sarah."

Suddenly, she was reminded of how utterly unassertive he was. That direct communication had never worked with him. That he never _tried_. She was already coming to the end of her rope, with a wrecked house, weird shit happening in the walls, and a father who could very well be dying from a mysterious illness was not helping matters.

"Damn it, Dad!" She slammed her hand onto the table. The porcelain cups of tea and coffee, along with his frail body, jolted. Her green eyes blazed. "Why did you really bring me here? I could have gone to a friend's house instead. I can help around the house if you need help, but you're clearly sick-"

He chuckled. "What friends, Sarah?"

She choked on her words with sudden indignation. "I have friends! My friends from the theatre-"

"The ones you never talk to? Sarah, I'm worried about you. You and Toby have been so reclusive, so cut off from the world. It's not healthy for you two to be so alone."

The room felt smaller and smaller with every word he said. Something tightened in her chest and Sarah balked. "I. Am. _Not. _Alone!" She ripped her hand from his and cradled it in her lap. "Is this what's been worrying you?" She spat. "That your daughter and son aren't _normal _like everyone else? Is this seriously what's worried you to the point where we think you're _dying_?" Tears prickled her eyes but she was too proud to let them fall. Not here, not now. "Well, it's stupid. Toby and I are just fine doing our own thing. We aren't freaks of nature just because we don't do things like you and Irene do!"

He looked at her tiredly, melancholic, like all the energy had been sapped from his face. All he had was a small, serene smile in the face of her anger.

"It's all my fault, Sarah. All my fault. I never should have…"

"Should have what?"

His eyes glazed over. "I'm weak. So…very…tired…" His eyelids slipped shut and he slumped over.

"Dad!" Sarah lunged and caught him before his face met the hard table. She gently pushed him back into the chair, where his head lolled listlessly. Panicked, she checked for a pulse. It fluttered, but was strong. "Irene! Irene!"

Her step-mother bolted in through the back door, toting an armful of freshly folded laundry that, when she saw her husband's state, she dropped to the floor and ran over to them. "What on earth happened!?"

"I don't know! We were just arguing and then he…." Sarah lunged for her Dad's cell phone and went to call for an ambulance, but Irene grabbed her wrist. All of the panic had been swept from her face, leaving a serene and calm woman, who pried the phone from Sarah and put it back on the hook. Sarah watched, gobsmacked. "What are you doing? He needs help!"

"He's just sleeping, dear." Irene primly went to the kitchen sink, where she slowly wet a kitchen cloth, and returned to dab at her husband's face. "It happens. Getting him excited like that? Makes him very tired. Honestly, Sarah, couldn't you see that he was sick?"

Her cheeks burned. "I…of course I did. I was just trying to find out what's going on with him, and you."

"Me, dear?" Irene sung dreamily back to her, "Nothing's wrong with me."

Sarah eyed her sceptically. Sure, her and Irene had been on better terms since last Thanksgiving, but not like _this. _Irene wasn't this much of a scatterbrain.

"He said something was his fault. That he was too weak to do something." Irene stilled. Sarah observed. "Does that mean anything to you?"

The older woman went back to wetting her husband's face. "No. No, he's just been very stressed out. You must be tired too, you've had a long day. Why not go upstairs and take a nap?"

_With knocking walls? I don't think so. _She fetched a jacket and, checking over her shoulder to see Irene doting on her unconscious father, walked out the front door.

Sarah was immediately glad for the jacket. Autumn afternoon pushed against her clothes and exposed skin, dancing in her hair and bringing the scent of pumpkin and crisp fallen leaves. The sudden chill and scents were a welcome sensation. Walking always helped her clear her head.

Her feet led her where her mind had forgotten. Through leaf-littered paths, passed lawns that had been cut and cleared, over bridges where small, icy streams ran through. She nodded at bikers who zoomed past, ignored couples who were impossibly wrapped around each other while walking, said a customary 'good evening' to older gentlemen who found a jaunt in the park with their wives' dogs refreshing.

She ended up in a familiar park, to a familiar bench, where she sat and wondered.

"Okay," She breathed in deeply, "Okay, Williams. Let's sort this all out in order. First, your house gets wrecked because of some crazy occult people. Motive? Probably none, probably just crazy teenagers. You're obviously a bit paranoid now. So second, the knocking on the walls was probably paranoia-induced with the subconscious thinking of Jennifer's story. In reality, it was probably some branch and I was just over-imagining it. Third, what the hell is up with Dad and Irene? Got nothing there. Just stress? Doubt it. Four…fourth…" Sarah's eyes locked with a woman over the other side of the park, who was running and looking at her oddly. Sarah's cheeks burned. "And four, you look like a crazy person talking to yourself." Groaning, she buried her head in her hands.

_Maybe I am lonely. Talking to myself in the middle of a park. _

Her inner conscience tweaked its glasses, sat higher in her chair, and pointed to a piece of paper in front of it.

Oh, right. Sarah rubbed at her eyes and looked around at the park. "The message…" She mumbled. "Summon me. What is that?" An old habit, more than a reflex, made her look up into the tree. She was so used to seeing a white owl there that she started when she saw nothing instead.

Weird. Well, it was weird already that an owl had stalked her for more than a decade. Like a friend. Or a spirit animal. Or really just some stalkerish owl. Weird now that it was no longer there. Whenever she went somewhere to clear her head or mumble, the owl was there to hoot back.

_Oh, god, I am lonely._

_What if it meant summon the owl?_

Her inner conscience gave her a look.

_I am going crazy. _

Sighing, she stood up. _Go home and get some rest. You can think more logically after a nice, long sleep. _That sounded really good. She looked back up to the tree, and couldn't explain the abrupt feeling of loss that she felt, or how she felt when realizing how often she must've looked to that owl when it was there. Not until it was gone. Shrugging it off, she started home through the park.

"Getting any candy, ma'am?" The snap of a newspaper caught her attention and she slowed. Someone sat on a park bench, reading the paper. She couldn't see his face, nor his fingers where he ought to be holding the edge of the paper. She stayed a cautious distance away.

"Sorry?" She enquired.

"It'd be Halloween coming up, ma'am. Better get the candy or some wee ones won't be happy about that at all."

Sarah stared. "Right." She carried on her walk. _What an odd guy. _She felt a sort of niggling sensation in the back of her head, something like intuition calling, and turned back around.

All that was on the bench was a heavy jacket, pants, shoes and a newspaper.

"What…the….hell…is….going….on?" Sarah felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand and she looked around her. There were a few people still milling about, quickly heading back to their houses as the sky darkened and the park's lamps lit up. She quickened her own pace back to the house, not stopping for anyone who might wish her a customary 'hello'.

When she got back, there were only a few lights left on in the house. She sneaked past the kitchen where only a few cups remained on the table. She trotted up the stairs and stopped at her Dad and Irene's room. A slit of light shone through the gap below the door and it was ajar slightly. She peeked through – just to check – and saw her Dad in bed, Irene hovering over him and singing to him softly.

It seemed intimate. But also kind of wrong. Sarah wasn't sure why, but she had a strange feeling about it. As she had a lot of things lately. No, for a long time. Her Dad seemed alright now and in capable hands, so she backed away and went to Toby's door.

His, like a typical teenager, was firmly shut. The light was on and when she pressed her ear to the door, she heard some modern music humming from a pair of headphones, and swift typing. He was probably on Youtube and chatting to some friends.

Satisfied that everybody seemed to be more or less alright, she quickly retired to her own room and bed. She barely managed to get into her pyjamas and shuffled under the blankets. Weariness sat heavy in her bones and eyelids. She yawned. It'd been a long twenty four hours. She just needed rest. She looked at the walls for what seemed like ages, almost willing something to tap or thump and set her on edge _now_, while she was still aware, but nothing came.

She forgot about her house, about the walls, about Dad and Irene, about that stranger at the bench, and drifted into deep sleep.

"_Sarah, Sarah. Let down your hair!"_

_She was standing in some sort of tower, nursing a headache. Sarah blinked. She wore a familiar puffy white dress, that awfully tacky one she'd worn when she danced with the Goblin King so long ago. It was looser in some places, and tighter in others. But she chose to ignore that, because she couldn't stop gawking at the length of her hair. It was thick, and long, so long it travelled past the heels of her feet, across the floor, draped itself over a chair and table, somehow (she didn't want to know how) wound itself around a supportive beam and who knows where else. _

_She tugged at the roots of her hair. Oh yup. It was real. Dream Sarah was now Dream Rapunzel._

_It hurt too. The weight of it dragged at her scalp. _

_No wonder she had a headache._

_Sarah leaned over the window and peered down. She could see a speck at the bottom that she assumed was the man who had spoken._

"_Hello?" She awkwardly yelled down._

_He looked up at her. He seemed to be a kindly man, with an aged face and dark hair peppered with white strands, a strongly built body. Some memory of Dream Sarah's told her that he could be trusted._

"_Sarah, lovely, throw down your hair."_

_She roped her hair into her hands and then tossed it over the edge, the weight of it nearly sending her over too. With some superhuman strength that she knew Real Sarah didn't have, she held onto her hair while the man climbed it._

"_I've been trying to find you for some time now." He shouted to her. _

_Sarah blinked, "Oh? I need rescuing, do I?" She teased._

"_Oh, yes…" She heard him getting closer. He was fast for such a sturdy man. The higher he climbed, the more her head hurt. _

_Ouch. An abrupt yank nearly tore a clump of her hair out. She flinched, tears prickled her eyes. "Oh, um, and what exactly do I need rescuing from?"_

_Another pull. He was only a foot away and yanked hard on her hair. Sarah shrieked as the sudden force caused her to nearly fall out the window. In the distance, she heard an owl screech._

_A wicked, sinister look overcame the man's face and dread filled her gut. This wasn't the man she thought he had been. This was someone else, something far worse._

_He opened his mouth, revealing a set of ragged, rotten fangs. "Me." She knew he would lunge for her. Grab her throat and tear it open with those hideous teeth. _

_Before he could, something enveloped her from behind, reached out, and in one swipe, deftly cut her hair at her shoulders. _

_There was one, long, comical moment where the man below hovered there in shock. Long strands of hair slipped through his fingers and fell like dead weight to the ground. He followed suit with a roar of rage. She watched in horror, unable to look away as he plummeted to earth. Just as his body would've made contact with the ground, it cracked beneath him into a gaping hole, and swallowed him whole like a whale eating a guppy fish. The ground grumbled before settling flat again into the flowered meadow it had been before._

_Long fingers tapered down her forearms and settled in a tight grip, pulling her into a hard body. Her heart raced frantically in her chest, every nerve opening, and every fine hair on her body rising with anticipation. She knew exactly who it was. It felt like her body was awakening to something her mind had forgotten. How she could have forgotten that feeling? A fine mouth hovered centimetres from the nape of her neck and she shivered._

"_The champion saved by her adversary. How delightfully… original this situation is." His voice was cold, sarcastic, biting. Not at all like the warmth his hands on her arms, and the proximity of his body, gave off. _

"_Goblin King…" Dream Sarah breathed, and stepped out of his grasp. His hands fell away, and when she turned around, there he stood._

_Just as she remembered him. A figure carved from the most androgynous of men, where the word handsome fell short and wanting, and beautiful and angelic came closer. She felt more aware of the long, blonde hair spiked on his head and shoulders, more aware of the beautifully carved curve of his jawline, the fairness of his skin, the straight plane of his nose. A few tell-tale lines on his face showed from the deepness of his frown, his eyebrows curved upwards, exposing the pair of mismatched eyes that she thought belonged once to an owl's. _

_One was cold as green limestone, the other expressionless as flat bourbon. _

_He stood mightily and smugly as he always had, but there was something else to him. He didn't seem to be trying to enforce his intimidating tactics on her. Quite the opposite. He kept a respectful distance from her now._

_His eyes fell to the short ends of her hair. "Hm. I like you with long hair. But short hair looks fetching on you too."_

_Her hand automatically reached for her hair before she could stop it. A subconscious fiddle with the ends, and she awkwardly returned her hand to her side. He smirked. She scowled._

_The Goblin King turned and strolled across the room as if he owned the place. He found a stool to sit on and parted his legs, looking at her intimately. _

"_So, we aren't going straight to bed this time. Just witty banter? I will admit, I miss your fire, Precious, even if I much like you on your-"_

"_Stop." Dream Sarah held up her hand. The implication of the two of them in bed together had lit a fire in her belly that she had firmly stomped on as soon as it started. Even if it had felt briefly delicious. "Okay. One, we've never been in bed together…ever. Second, close your legs. That's unnecessarily distracting." _

_His smirk grew bigger, but he bowed a little in his seat and crossed his leg over the other. "As you wish, Precious." _

_Her cheeks reddened. "And third, no calling me Precious."_

_His gaze darkened, and without doing anything else, the intensity in the room grew as if It had been waiting to spring forth from something unbidden. His presence took up the entire room. She felt a pool of liquid heat re-surface in her gut and slither downwards. It was unnatural the kind of raw sexual energy he could radiate with one look. "Bossy in this dream, yes. I may have had this fantasy once, last time I did not take so well to being beaten again in my own dream, I must warn you, Sarah." He stood. "I won't put up with it again. Submit to me, this time, and I will give you everything that you need."_

_Oh, boy. Dream Sarah was suddenly glad for the poofy dress. He couldn't tell her knees were shaking like they had on her first prom with Tommy Hemsworth._

_She settled for nipping it in the bud. Sarah straightened her shoulders and looked him squarely in the eye. Whatever he received from that look, he appeared taken aback. "You have no power over me, Jareth." He winced, and she almost felt bad. Almost. "I'm not sure what brothel crap you're talking about, but I think I've had enough of this dream." She raised her hands and looked to the ceiling. "Ready to wake up now! Any time!"_

_Jareth looked at her like she had a screw loose. A look she was already accustomed to. "Interesting…you sound so much like my Sarah. Not my Dream Sarah, but Sarah. But you can't be her." Something in his voice made her hesitate. She looked at him._

_He seemed despondent, sad, lonely. Defeated. _

_Against her better judgement, she walked to Dream Sarah's dresser and took a seat. "This is my dream. You're…Dream Jareth. I'll wake up eventually, and this'll be nothing but-"_

"_-But a dream." That coldness was back. It snapped over his face like doors of steel, hiding away any wisp of vulnerability that might have been there before. "Oh, you sound exactly like she. She too was in denial. Hiding behind silly excuses and the pretence of a normal life, but always feeling like the outcast. Always looking and never being a part of it all. That's what the Underground does to those who've touched its soil, eaten its fruit, breathed its air. You will never return the same."_

"_You…" Sarah had gone white. "You __**knew **__about me feeling out of place? About never fitting in? That it was the Underground's fault. Your fault!"_

"_And there you go again, blaming other people for your decisions."_

"_I-!" Dream Sarah was perfectly ready to fly into a tirade. But she didn't. The tirade died in her throat._

_He was right. He had been right before as well. About her always complaining about how unfair life was, and if she sucked up her pride, she knew he was right about her holding desperately onto something always out of reach. Something she felt deep in her bones never belonged to her, the pretence of a normal life. _

_It was uncomfortable. So many situations that they had been in had forced her to confront a part of herself that she didn't want to. _

"_Since when have you become my trainer for personal growth?" She settled for lame mockery. He raised an arched eyebrow._

"_Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, Precious."_

"_Why am I even dreaming of you?" She breathed, "God, this is a midlife crisis, isn't it? It couldn't wait atleast another bloody decade-"_

"_Oh, I am the dreamer here, Precious." Jareth stood and made his way to her. Abruptly, she quickly scuttled away from her chair and tried to put as much distance between them as she could. He stopped. "Although this is not how my dreams tend to end up…"_

_Sarah couldn't remember being so confused in her entire…dream life. "Who's dreaming of who, then?" She asked in alarm. She definitely felt kind of aware of herself having a dream, so it had to be her dreaming. Had to be. _

_A peculiar look overcame his features. He gave her a long once over, as if searching for something, and stared intently at her face. He must have found what he was looking for, because realization dawned in his expression. "Sarah…my Sarah…of course. Of course you'd be able to come to me in dreams, now that I am in the position that I am."_

_None of that made a hell of a lot of sense to her. "What the hell are you talking about?"_

_He crossed the distance between them, and she tried to flatten herself against the wall. He didn't have any of it. He gripped her forearms, eyes blazing, and spoke grievously. "Run. Sarah. Get out of here before they find you. They'll come for you and I don't know what in Oberon's name they'll do to you, but you have to get out!"_

_She pushed his hands off of her. He was beginning to scare her. "This is turning into a nightmare."_

"_You will be living one soon if you don't get out. Sarah, get out of that house."_

**A/N: This is taking a hell of a lot longer to get to the action than I thought, but bear with me. We will be getting into some action very soon. **

**Meanwhile, Sarah and Jareth have finally met up again, although it's kind of sad the both of them didn't quite realize it…well, Jareth did in the end. Poor Sarah, a lot of weird shite is happening to her suddenly, and it will all be coming head to head in the following chapters. **

**Tommy Hemsworth…I couldn't resist. They're a twist on Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth. Both actors I admire. **

**So, what exactly did Sarah's Dad do? Who was the man at the bench? What is hunting Sarah? When will she get the hell over the denial? **

**Please review! **


	6. Interlude for the Revolution

**A/N: Two chapter updates in one weekend? YAAAAAY. Once again, I do not own Labyrinth.**

The Underground could be described as a different world or realm living parallel in existence with ours. In nearly every mythology and folklore, worlds exist next to ours. For the Norse, the branches of the world tree Yggdrasil extend into nine other realms, including ours. For the Greeks, it was Olympus. For the Egyptians, the Afterlife.

Even in biblical verse, there exists heaven and hell.

The Underground belonged to the realm of Fae. Fae are supernatural beings of mysterious culture and kind. More beautiful, long-lived and powerful than the race of man, they had once co-existed on Midleim (their name which they called our world) until the greed and jealousy of man had driven them to leave.

The Fae closed their gates, and eventually, became nothing but dreams and fairy tales to Men. They watched as Man grew worse over time, inventing new machines and systems to destroy each other and themselves, in the pointless pursuit of individual power.

But the Underground kind were not so invincible themselves. Such beings who loved the natural energy of the world (love, nature, chaos, order) needed the power of belief from Men. So cursed were they to thrive and grow only when others believed in them. But when they should have banded together as one world, it came to be that the Rulers of each Kingdom disagreed.

Love wanted only harmony.

Nature wanted only to observe.

Chaos wanted only freedom.

Order wanted only everything.

Unable to make a decision, each turned reclusive to themselves, and shut their gates to others. The ruler of Love created the kingdom of Venudite, where High Lady Titania and High Lord Oberon ruled. It was an opulent place which long-suffered Order's visits, but protected those Fae who wanted a simpler, harmonious lifestyle.

The Ruler of Nature created the kingdom of Nowhere. Its ruler, Pan, lorded over the beasts of nature – satyrs, nymphs, the non-fairies, where all citizens belonged first most to their own nature and bowed only to him. Where they kept to their forests and stayed out of the restrictions of politics. They dealt business the most with Chaos, and did not like Order, driving him back with horn and horse.

The Ruler of Chaos created the Labyrinth. An amazing piece of magic that had grown animate in itself, organic to its ruler's needs and desires, and yet separate too. Particularly when it did not have a firm hand and attention. The Labyrinth existed to protect the most outcasted of things – goblins, others thrown away, and dreams. Over time, Jareth found other uses for it: a challenge for runners (for he was the only one for many centuries who still stole to the other world) and kept out Order. Of whom he found some comical entertainment in devising many tricky traps and ways to keep Order's long honk of a nose out of his business.

The Ruler of Order, Nordok, had the Land With No Name. Strange as it was for something so restricted and precise, but Nordok kept his own business to himself. No one knew where his land was, what it was, or what was even in it. He seemed too busy going between the other kingdoms in a fruitless attempt to control them.

So it was that the Fae lived in this existence for centuries. Until a woman from Midleim challenged the Labyrinth and its ruler, and she won. The only Champion of the Labyrinth.

News had spread far and fast throughout the Underground, and some, who had been on the worse end of Jareth's mischief or misgivings before, flocked to gloat. They found the result somewhat wanting. The Labyrinth was more impossible to get through, the goblins more unruly, and its' King, changed.

Jareth had closed himself off for some time, and then appeared in court, the same mischievous and charming ruler as he had always been. He was the life of the party, the songbird of the court, the dancing feet of the ballroom, the performer of the stage, the lover of women and men…yet, the loving kingdom, Venudite, sensed no real love for it in him. But they sensed for the first time…love of some sort.

Jareth had loved only but himself for a long time. His first love had been a woman from Nowhere, but he'd been wrecked afterwards by her more polygamous nature. Rumour was it that he had taken from him his own heart, and sealed it away somewhere in his Labyrinth. High Lady Titania kept the truth quietly to herself, because she sensed no love from him, but she knew through her own power that his heart beat somewhere for someone.

She knew her premonition true when Jareth suddenly became reclusive again. As if he had eaten his fill of her house and it sat ill upon him. As time wore on, his obsession with something grew, broke, and he became something of a shadow of himself. He was frequently missing, frequently "mooning" as Oberon put it. A Fae with a broken heart was nothing to be taken of lightly.

Something had to be done. The Labyrinth and its goblins grew restless and worse without a firm ruler.

Oberon had tried to talk to him. Pan had tried to talk to him. Nordok had been trying to talk to him for centuries already and they all knew that was a useless endeavour.

Titania awoke one day knowing that something was wrong. Her daughter came to her that afternoon, distressed and angry, with information that she had gathered from sneaking into the Labyrinth. Jareth was missing, and the Goblins, having had no one to tell them what to do, fell into disagreement and a Revolution against one another. Saving their King. Ruling the Labyrinth themselves.

The worst of the news was of Shadows. Her daughter had gone into a rage. Sprouting a list (a very big list) of people who would take advantage of Jareth's vulnerable state to seize control of his kingdom. She called them "Shadows". Fae who dealt with dark magic. The one thing forbidden in all kingdoms.

"I think I know what I have to do," Her daughter decided one day. Resolution and stubbornness came from every pore in her body. "I'm going to Midleim."

Titania nodded, "I understand."

"There's a woman named Sarah Williams there. I think some of the Goblins will try to get to her too, but- wait, what?"

_So very stubborn, _Titania smiled to herself, _much like her father. _"I said I understand."

Her daughter stared. "You're agreeing with me? For once?"

"I believe in your instincts. If your instincts tell you this Sarah Williams will help Jareth and the Labyrinth, then I give you my blessing. I dare say it's time we stopped restricting you. You aren't a child anymore."

Her daughter beamed.

"But be warned, daughter, make haste. If we know of Sarah Williams, so do those who seek to harm Jareth. Darker forces will come for her too." She opened her arms and enveloped her daughter tightly, pressing a loving kiss to her head. "Be safe."

"Be loved." Her daughter chanted back.

That night, Titania watched as her daughter slinked through one of the many slits in the World that Jareth also used. That night, she prayed her family would come back together through this.

**A/N: Midleim is something I randomly made up from different sources. In Norse, they call earth Midguard. Tolkien also goes with Middle Earth. Our world just always seems like in the middle of things, so I went with Midleim (MID-LEEM)**

**Yes, Titania and Oberon are from Shakespeare. Considering Shakespeare's knowingness of human nature and love, I like to think the both of them came to him in a dream in order for Shakespeare to tell the world of them. Kind of a way to keep people believing in them, if only briefly.**

"**Be safe" "Be loved" is a common saying in Venudite, which, for those clever people who probably already worked it out, is a pun on the Goddess of Love. Aphrodite (Greek) Venus (Roman) Venu-dite.**

**Pan is also from celtic lore. He too survives by whispering of his kind through the woods to travellers. **

**Nordok is my own creation.**

**Cookies to those who can guess who Titania's daughter is, though it's not really that hard of a guess.**

**The bad guy in this is who you'll probably expect it to be, and also probably not. Please keep an open mind through it.**

**Please review! Next chapter will be back next weekend with Sarah. **


	7. Promise Me This

**Disclaimer: **It gets harder to say this every time and you know I don't, or claim to, own Labyrinth.

**A/N: **Thank you to those who left some amazing reviews. You really give me inspiration to keep going with this story. Apologies to those who've found mistakes in my past chapters, I'll work on fixing that when I have better internet connection, and endeavour to have no spelling mistakes in the future. To those who find it no longer interesting or too confusing for you, you're welcome to find another story that's simple and straight forward, but I am neither that kind of person nor that kind of writer. Again, thank you to those who left constructive criticism and/or good reviews, you're awesome!

Sarah awoke to something heavy on her chest. Through the darkness in her room, a pair of bright green eyes bore holes into her very soul, a slight pink nose and whiskers brushed against her cheek, and when the cat realized Sarah was wide-awake, it meowed. Sarah rolled her head to the side and gagged. Cat breath.

The strange cat finally deigned to slip off of her. It trotted circles on the bed, curled itself into a ball in that spot, and looked at her with casual indifference. Like it wasn't its first time being there and it ruled the entire room.

Sarah was about to throw it out (God, she missed Merlin) until she realized that the cat looked too well-groomed to be a stray. It even had a flea collar around it. The window, however, was locked and the door was tightly shut.

"Where the hell did you come from?" Sarah rolled over and switched on the lamp light. It cast artificial light over her bed and shadows across the walls. The cat blinked, and then looked up at her, still purring loudly. Cat stared. Sarah stared. "Look. I just had the strangest dream of my life- had the weirdest two days of my life, and you're not helping manners."

The cat meowed and stood up. It flicked its tail in the air like a proud banner, leapt from the bed, and sashayed over to where she kept her teddy bears. Sarah stared after her. "Where do you think you're going?"

Cat stopped exactly where Lancelot had fallen from yesterday. Its tail bowed and swept playfully across the carpet, then it bunched its hind muscles, and before Sarah could argue, it leapt with some supernatural grace into one of the cubby holes. It squashed up against Lancelot, nearly fell out of the hole because of lack of room, and then, with a look of great indignation, used both paws to swat Lancelot to the floor.

Sarah leapt out of bed. "Okay, that's it. You've had your fun." She bent to retrieve Lancelot, straightened to grab the cat, and the annoyance died in her throat as she stared at a hole in the cubby hole that hadn't been there before.

A cat-sized hole right through her wall.

The Goblin King's words came back to her like a taunting whisper. It mattered not if she were cold, if it were his message, or his voice, she shivered anyway.

"_Sarah, get out of that house." _

Oh, she should definitely get out of the house. She was just about at the end of her rope with all of this nonsense, and she was sick of being kept out of the loop of things she didn't understand. She felt played like a fool. As if some higher power or outside being was looking in and pulling on her puppet strings. Sarah Williams was not a damn puppet. She was not going to be some sick entertainment for some weirdo who thought all of this was funny!

She turned on the room light and tried to peer through the hole. But the light flooded every nook and cranny of her room, and cast shadow through the hole. She'd be better off using a flash light. She kept the light on because it made her feel a little braver, rummaged through her old dresser for her trusty flashlight, switched it on and pointed the light down the hole.

Air from a draft moaned through the wall. Web glistened in the light of her torch. Old boarded wood met her gaze. But no cat.

A light _tap _through the wall caught her attention. Sarah jumped away from the hole.

A full minute of utter silence dragged by for her, and then, she spoke hopefully.

"Here, kitty, kitty…"

In response, two light _taps _came through the wall again. Closer to her. Sarah followed them.

"Here, kitty, kitty. Please be the cat…" Not that she expected it to be a goblin. Her imagination went crazy. It threw at her images of blood thirsty little monsters with daggers for smiles, watching and waiting to strike at her throat, break and yank her body through the hole, or worse, leave it for her family to find…_Williams. Not now. _Stealing her resolve, she followed the taps until they stopped happening. Right in front of the hole.

She shined the flashlight in. "Come on out here, you- _OHMYGOD!" _A grey, scale-like hand slithered from the hole, dropped something red at her feet, and slithered back into the hole. Sarah dropped her flashlight in shock and scrambled away as fast as she could. Her back hit her window pane and she leaned as far as she could into its cold surface. Her heart beat like crazy in her ribcage, and her breath came out in pants.

She could hear snickering. In the walls. By her desk. Underneath her bed. In the walls. In the walls.

"_Sarah, get out of that house."_

"Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my _god._" She was starting to hyperventilate. This was too much. What was happening? Her house was broken into. Something was up with Irene and her Dad. That damn goblin in the walls story. The man at the bench. The dream about the Goblin King. The cat. The walls. The walls. The walls! The room was starting to spin.

She tried to control her breathing. Her acting classes used to teach different breathing patterns in order to control what she could say and emote in a single breath. She breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. Breathed in, exhaled slowly. Again and again.

The calmer she became, the less noise she began to hear. Unsure if that was really a good thing, Sarah weighed her options.

Obviously, she was having a mental breakdown.

Unless she wasn't. Unless all of it _had _been true.

What if goblins did exist…? (Of course they exist) What if her house had been targeted for a reason, and that message meant something…? (Of course it did) What if she hadn't just dreamt of the Goblin King, what if they'd communicated somehow through their dreams, and he'd been right? What if he'd been right all along and she had just forgotten who she had been, forgotten what had happened, denied the Labyrinth, pretended like she actually belonged in this world to protect herself…(because what else did grown woman do when they'd been hurt? Except build walls that had to come down sooner or later.)

Hardening the courage that her younger self had had in plenty, Sarah cautiously crept towards the fallen object on the ground. Her eyes skimmed across her room, her ears strained. She heard nothing, but she felt eyes. Many eyes, all of them focused on her next move. Her eyes flickered and analysed the fallen object.

Oh, inside she already knew what it was. Instantly. Utterly. Once, she had carried it around with her everywhere she went. Its spine was frayed from constant opening and closing. The red colour was slightly frayed. But otherwise it remained in good condition. Of course it did. Everything Sarah cared about remained in good condition. She wouldn't let it deteriorate. Unless she let it go.

Like she had let that go. In a garage sale. Years ago. So it couldn't be here now. It had to be another book, or something else.

She picked it up, looked inside the cover. 'Property of Sarah Williams. The Labyrinth_._'

_Oh, damn._

Further down the page, written in what she knew wasn't red ink, were the words 'Summon me'.

Anger flooded every pore in her body, and she spun around in anger. Her eyes were bright. "Is this the Goblin King!? Are you goddamn serious!? Is this you, goblins, making a mess in my life!?" She demanded. "What do you want from me!? _What do you want from me!?"_

The whispers started. Small murmurs at first, and then loud voices. All of them thumping against the wall and groaning "Summoned."

"Your King is an asshole if he thinks I'm going to bring him back into my life by terrorizing me!" Sarah planted her fists on her hips and growled. "I'm not going to be bullied into-"

"No need. Just asking for answers is good enough, methinks." A very female voice came from inside the walls. Sarah started. "Oh, _damn. _Should've turned back on the other side of the wall."

The raven haired woman frowned. "That voice sounds familiar…"

There was a loud thump and some cursing. "Oh, move, would you!? Here I am trying to be dramatic and impressive and there's nothing impressive about being stuck in a wall. Out of the way, please, goblins-ow!"

A face appeared through the hole. A familiar olive-skinned face with bright green eyes and a familiar small smirk. She looked sheepishly at Sarah.

"You wouldn't happen to have a trap door out of here, would you?"

"Kharis!" Sarah gawked. "What? How did you get in my wall!? How did you get inside my house!?"

"Oh, well, funny story actually. Involves a fair bit of drama and magic on my part, and no small amount of shapeshifting. Would be lovely if you could help me out of here though. It's a bit hard shifting back straight away, I'm new to all this."

Sarah's eyebrows knitted. "I would love to get you out of there as soon as you tell me what the hell is going on!"

Kharis grinned. "My brother was right. You are very stubborn. Clever of you, though. Are we going to bargain now, Sarah? Isn't that what you humans do with my kind?"

That sounded like a good idea. Sarah had no idea what this woman was. She folded her arms over her chest and considered her options.

"You're going to answer a few of my questions and promise me something. Then I'll get you out of there."

"Seems like you get the better end of that bargain."

"Do you want to get out of my wall or not?"

"Touché." Kharis childishly stuck out her tongue. "I would bow to your hard bargaining if, you know, there wasn't a wall in my way. Now ask your questions and name your promise, please, there's a great deal we need to talk about. Preferably out of this house."

The second person who wanted her out of here. "Firstly, you must promise to tell me the truth, and to not hurt me or my family."

"Don't trust me?"

"About as far as I could throw you."

"Clever girl." Kharis wriggled a bit and managed to stick her hand out of the hole. She stuck out her pinkie. "I, Kharis of Venudite, daughter of Oberon and Titania, promise to tell you the truth and to not hurt yourself or your family. Not that that had ever been my intention in the first place."

Sarah stared. "A pinkie swear? Really? What do you people from the Underground do, run on children's games all the time?"

"Sure, and on the seventh day we play ring-a-ring-a-rosie to summon Satan to frolic with the nymphs." Kharis dryly replied. "It's just a pinkie swear. They're powerful from where I come from, a symbol of bond and promise between two people, and that means I can't break whatever vow I do give to you."

"How do I know you aren't lying to me right now?"

"You don't. But what choice do you have?"

"_Hoggle, how do I know I can trust you?"_

"_You don't. But let me put it this way, what choice do you have?"_

"Well, when you put it that way." Sarah muttered and tentatively interwove her pinkie with Kharis's. There was an uncomfortable silence where the two of them just stood there, pinkies together, and Sarah shuffled. "Do I have to say anything special?"

"No," Kharis admitted, "That's it, really." She let go of Sarah's hand and the other woman stared at the space between them. There were no lightning bolts, no magical sparks, no weird winds, definitely no owls at the window. She was kind of disappointed.

"Well, that was a little anticlimactic."

Kharis rolled her eyes. "Everyone's a critic. Now can I get out of the wall? I can't hurt you."

Sarah didn't see anything wrong with that. There was a trap door behind her bed. It'd previously been used to store important things from her parents, like her old diary. She managed to push the bed away and the door creaked open for her. From it crawled Kharis, her mane of light haired curls taking up more space and unruliness than Sarah had remembered, and a group of goblins fell out from behind her.

There were five of them altogether. Short and stout, with grey-skin and furry faces, dressed in rag-like attire and horned helmets. They stared up at her with a reverence that made her feel instantly uncomfortable.

"It's her!"

"It's Sarah! We're finally bein' seen by the Sarah!"

"Do I look alright?"

"You always look like crap, Cricket."

"Shut up, Macca."

"Don't push me, Dingy! Ow, Cricket!"

"Sorry!"

One of the goblins kicked Kharis's leg, who shook the goblin off with a grimace. "By love, no wonder my brother's in such a foul state with you lot all the time. You lot are just unruly."

"Brother? Who's your brother, lady?"

"Who are you, anyways?"

"Where's the King?"

Kharis groaned. "Are you telling me your forgetful brains will forget me but not Sarah!?"

The goblins looked toward Sarah again. She had to check whether she had something shiny on her, or if she had something in her teeth. The staring was creeping her out.

"Sarah's our Champion!"

"Now and forever, Queen Sarah!"

One of the goblins, Macca, lifted another one over his shoulder, Cricket. He crawled up onto Sarah's bed, lifted Cricket like a flag, then propped her onto the bed like a stake and stuck out his chest proudly. "We, the Goblin Revolution against the Shadow, are proud to have chosen our Champion for King Jareth. The one and only Sarah, previous Champion of the Labyrinth, who we will see as our one and only female sovereign unti…until…until what?"

Cricket squeaked, "Forever!"

"Right. Forever. Not long at all then." He pushed Cricket over so she rolled off of the bed and onto the floor. The other three soon grew more interested in the teddy bears on Sarah's wall and started pulling them down and fighting over them.

Sarah felt a headache coming on. "It was you, wasn't it? You guys trashed my house."

Kharis had the good grace to atleast blush. "We might've went a tadbit overboard-"

"A_ tadbit!?"_

"I'll fix it, I promise. We just had to get your attention." Kharis plucked the stool from Sarah's desk and plopped down on it. The goblins rolled over on the floor with the teddy bears. Kharis gestured to the bed. "Please, sit. We've a lot to talk about."

Sarah didn't sit. She held up her hand and started to raise fingers with every point she had. "House…Jennifer Morris…My step mum and Dad…Bench…the Goblin King. In no particular order. Go."

To give Kharis credit, she launched straight into the story.

"The Goblin King went missing some time ago. The last person to see him was a Goblin named Pipsqueak and it said the King had gone to see an intruder in the Labyrinth. That was the last time the Goblins had seen or heard from him. The goblins are, as I'm sure you can tell, unruly, forgetful, annoying but rather loyal subjects. They need a firm hand or they descend into chaos, and goblins running rampant in the Underground is the last thing anyone wants. Since the King's been gone, the goblins have separated into different groups. Some are now running the Labyrinth. Yeah, judging by the look on your face even you know that that's bad."

Sarah remembered the last time the centre of Labyrinth's castle had been under siege against her. She hated to think of what kind of horrible mischief they'd caused all on their own, especially to the Labyrinth.

"No one knows what happened to the Goblin King?" She had seen him in her dream last night. But was that a wise idea to tell Kharis?

Kharis grimaced. "My mother is Queen of the Underground. She has powers of foresight and was able to use divination tools to see him in some sort of spell-induced sleep. But we don't know where he is. Whoever has done this to him has powerful magic to be able to block out my mother's sight. He isn't hurt from what we can tell, but the Labyrinth won't last long without him. It and him have a symbiotic relationship. The Labyrinth can't last without its Goblin King, nor can the Goblin King last without the Labyrinth."

"Now we come to why we're here." The goblins started guffawing and pointing to the head of one of the teddy bears, which they had removed from its body and stuck on poor Cricket's head. The goblin was stumbling around, knocking into every object it possibly could. "There is a group of Fae who use dark magic, known as the Shadows."

"Not cliché at all."

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, dear." Kharis still smiled wryly. "This group has been uprising over the last century, and it is no great feat to link that they might be involved in this. The Labyrinth is an amazing piece of wild magic. If controlled by the wrong type of people, it could be used to infect the rest of the Underground. It is already growing beyond the Goblin King's borders.

I tried to get inside and find him. I managed only a glimpse before the Labyrinth chased me out and locked me out. Whether it was an offensive attack or only in some last attempt to protect its ruler, I'm unsure of. But I am sure of one thing.

There is a group of goblins who are undertaking a Revolution against the enemies of their King. There are Fae who are eager to have the Goblin King back and restore balance. But there are few portals that are able to get to Midleim, sorry, you're realm. I could only take a few with me so as not to attract too much attention." Kharis paused and her features turned serious. "It would seem I'm too late for that."

Sarah shifted anxiously. "What do you mean?"

"I thought to phase myself slowly into your life. To get you to believe again eventually, so it wouldn't come as a shock. But when I arrived in this world I could feel the grip of dark magic in it. Around you, Sarah. It has been watching and infecting your life for longer than I have, in subtle ways, trying to get you to disbelieve. Trying to distract you in any way it can. Trying to keep an eye on you."

Sarah felt her stomach twist like it was a wet towel wringing out water. "My…my Dad and step mother." She swallowed. "My Dad's been very sick. He said something was his fault, and my step mother has been acting so oddly lately." The look on Kharis's face didn't make her feel better.

"Your father is not a particularly imaginative or assertive man. He was easy for the dark magic to rule over. It has latched onto him, infecting him, but your Dad's body isn't strong enough to handle such power. Your Dad might have moments where he's conscious of what's going on inside him, but it's not him. Nor is that your step mother anymore. I imagine your brother is only immune because of the connection he has to the Goblin King, he spent some time in the Underground. But this won't go away, Sarah. Not until we get rid of this dark magic in your world."

Her skin crawled. Sarah felt like she floated to the window, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, wishing that she could see something normal. Wishing she had the comfort of seeing the owl outside her window.

_No, no you know who that was. _Sarah thought, _But you don't want to think about what that means._

"How…" Sarah croaked, "How could this have happened? How could the Goblin King let himself be taken advantage of like that?"

"You know how." Kharis said quietly from her seat. "Love makes us do stupid things."

"He doesn't love me."

"He didn't know how to love you rightly," Kharis argued, "Not like any normal man from your realm would. But as a Fae, well, even as a Fae, Jar-the Goblin King has been a little different. But that doesn't mean he never loved you."

"We call it stalking and obsession."

"Oh, Sarah," Kharis sighed. "If you were an immortal being with all of time on your side, and the person you loved was something that could pass away in a blink of your eye, would you not want to spend every single moment of your time making sure that they were alright?"

Sarah couldn't answer that. She couldn't understand that. Even if she wanted to.

"This is something the Goblin King and you should discuss when you save him."

"Hang on a second," Sarah turned around, "I didn't say I was going to save him!"

The goblins stopped. Cricket managed to pull the teddy bear head off. "Wha!?" It cried.

"This isn't my problem!" Sarah argued, "As far as I can tell, this has all happened in your realm because of your people. My Dad is dying because of you lot. My family is falling apart because of you. Because you let this happen. I'm not the Champion anymore. I'm not _anything _anymore. I'm just a thirty year old woman too old to be racing off to save the world-"

"Worlds." Macca interrupted. "You'd be saving worlds."

"Sarah," Kharis said seriously. She came into her personal space, eyes bright and the air around her heavy and electrified with the scent of slightly burnt pine needles and mint balm. Something about her reminded Sarah of the Goblin King. "Sarah, that isn't you. It's _them. _Its magic is poisoning your mind. Making you not believe, making you afraid, making you not want to do the right thing. You have to get past this. You're smart, you're strong, you're brave. You wouldn't let anyone make you do anything you didn't want to do. Find that strength to get past this, Sarah."

The world was starting to spin around her. The edges of her vision grew dark. She was finding it hard to breathe. "No, I'm not…it's not there. This is me. I am me. I am me!"

"Sarah!"

She collapsed into beautiful silence and darkness. A familiar voice breathed her name in her mind.

"_Sarah."_


End file.
